Meeting Heike in Golfito
Some of the best travel friendships begin with almost no warning. Two strangers meet, discover that they are headed toward the same wild place, and within a day are planning an adventure together.
After several weeks traveling through Panama and Guatemala, I was headed toward Corcovado National Park on Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula. In Golfito I met Heike Karcher, a nurse from Germany who was taking an extraordinary eight-month holiday and bicycling through Central America.
We quickly realized that we both wanted to hike into Corcovado. That evening we worked out the permits, bought food and supplies, shared dinner, and prepared to leave civilization behind the next morning. We had only just met, yet there was an immediate sense that we would make good wilderness partners.
Eight Days in Corcovado
We took the ferry and began the long approach into one of the wildest tropical rainforests in the Americas. The first day involved roughly eight hours of backpacking along remote beaches before reaching the ranger-station area where overnight stays were permitted. It was hot, beautiful, isolated, and exactly the kind of travel I loved.
Late that first afternoon, warm tropical rain began falling. Rather than continue another hour toward dinner at the ranger station, we decided we had walked far enough. We set up camp and started a fire. Keeping it alive in the rain became a project of its own, but we managed to nurse it along just long enough to cook dinner.
Early the next morning, monkeys came down from the trees to collect fruit and flowers knocked loose by the night's heavy rain. They studied our tent with the same curiosity that we felt watching them. Moments like that made Corcovado unforgettable: we were not merely visiting the rainforest; for a little while, we were living inside it.
During the trip we stayed around remote ranger outposts and once slept in a loft or rafters above a ranger station. We hiked muddy jungle trails, camped near wild beaches, swam, carried everything we needed, and watched wildlife all around us. We encountered monkeys, sharks, and a caiman, along with the constant sounds and movement of the tropical forest.
Heike was adventurous, capable, flexible, and easy to travel with. Our friendship was completely platonic, but it had the closeness that comes from sharing hard miles, uncertain weather, simple food, and a remarkable wilderness. It remains one of the best stretches of time I ever spent living out of a backpack.
Fortuna, Arenal, and More Wandering
Our travels did not end when we emerged from Corcovado. Heike and I spent the next four or five weeks traveling together through parts of Central America. We eventually reached La Fortuna near the Arenal volcano, where we found hot springs and continued the easy rhythm of independent travel: hostels, buses, shared plans, and destinations chosen as much by curiosity as by any fixed itinerary.
We camped near Arenal while it was still extremely active. About every forty-five minutes, the ground would shake, lava would shoot into the air, and red molten rock would tumble down the volcano. By morning, our tents were covered with ash. We stopped at a local hot spring for a bath and a long soak.
On Christmas Day, we went caving through a cave system with waterfalls inside it. We had a blast and came out soaked to the bone. That combination of volcano country, tropical heat, caves, and hot water was very different from the coastal wilderness of Corcovado, but it became another memorable chapter of the same journey.
Finding Each Other Again in Nicaragua
Eventually our routes separated. Heike continued toward Nicaragua while I headed west to Montezuma for the New Year's festivities. Then, by pure coincidence, we ran into each other again on the islands of Lake Nicaragua. Both of us wanted to climb the volcanoes, so naturally we teamed up again.
We started before daylight, getting up around four in the morning to climb one of the volcanic peaks. We climbed high, descended into the caldera, and later had lunch beside the lake. It felt perfectly in character for our friendship: separate paths unexpectedly crossing again, followed almost immediately by another ambitious day outdoors.
From a Bicycle Journey to New York City
Two years later, one September day, Heike called me from Oregon. She was once again on a major bicycle journey, this time riding for about four months from Canada toward Mexico. She said hello and told me she would call again when she reached San Diego.
Sure enough, she called shortly before Christmas. On her flight back to Germany, she arranged to stop in New York. We met there and spent several days together enjoying New York City at Christmastime. After knowing each other through beaches, rainforests, ranger stations, volcanoes, caves, and long-distance bicycle travel, it was fun to share an entirely different kind of adventure.
One of the highlights was my first Broadway show. From seats around the tenth row, we watched an excellent performance of The Phantom of the Opera. It was another unforgettable reunion with one of the most special people I met during all my years of travel.
Heike, I will always remember your adventurous spirit, your independence, and especially your wonderful smile.
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